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Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Making Room For More

Although the Compassion bloggers are no longer in Uganda, their words and their stories are still inspiring people to take a step of faith and sponsor a child there.

For the first time ever, Compassion released a goal of how many children they hoped to see sponsored as a result of this trip. 400.

400 children being released from poverty. 400 children being matched to a loving, caring, encouraging sponsor. 400 new relationships blooming under the care of sponsorship. 400 lives changed.

But really, you have to double that number to understand the impact because it's not only the sponsored child who is impacted. In most cases, the sponsor is also impacted.

800 lives changed.

But what about the ripple effect that will likely happen? Many of the sponsored children have families who will surely feel the impact of sponsorship. And many of the sponsors have family and they, too, will hopefully feel the impact of sponsorship.

It's actually impossible to know the full affect this trip will have on lives.

But the goal hasn't been reached. As of this morning, there were 326 recorded sponsorships.

And that's why I'm writing.

Last week I had no intention of sponsoring another child. In December we took on the financial sponsorship of two of our correspondence children. It was unexpected and my initial reaction was "Nope. We can't. We are at our max and we have this trip coming up...."

But I sensed I was supposed to step out in faith.

This is exactly what happened last week...another nudging to step out in faith.

The day after I sponsored Esther in Uganda....I got an email from Compassion. Jazmin, our correspondent child in Peru, had lost her financial sponsor. Was I interested in taking on this responsibility?

Ummmmm......

How could I not? This was the girl I met and fell in love with back in 2010.

The girl who traveled 23 hours to meet me....a complete stranger. I had begun corresponding with her a few months before my trip, but she hadn't yet received any of my letters. Despite this, she, her mom and her younger brother traveled almost an entire day to meet me.

Another step of faith.

I'm challenging you to take a step of faith. Not because I said so, but because maybe you've been sensing it's time. Follow the Spirit's leading in this, even if it doesn't seem rational.

If you had an emergency happen that would set you back $38 a month, could you cover those emergency expenses? If it was your child (or grandchild or niece or nephew or brother or sister or friend....) who wasn't receiving proper nutrition or education or health care, and it would only cost you $38 a month to cover those expenses, could you find a way?

Our luxuries can cover other's emergencies.

What if we took "love your neighbor as yourself" literally? What if every time we spent money on ourselves, we set aside the same amount of money to help someone else? That $3 coffee - now it's $6 ($3 for your coffee, $3 for your neighbor). That $30 meal out - now it's $60....

What if we made small choices and changed our habits. And those small choices and changed habits allowed us to feed, educate, clothe, nurture and disciple a child on the other side of the world?